The Weedpatch Gazette

Welcome! My favorite part of this blog is the interactive aspect of it. Click on the blue titles to view the full article. This page is where you can pin, tweet, share, and best of all, COMMENT! I like comments! ~ Rommy Lopat

CHICAGO PLANTS, LANDSCAPES, PARKS & PRESERVES

~ and the people that create them ~

It's the end of March and the weather has been down (a horrible cold blustery day last Sunday, March 29) and UP (today is 60 and sunny). I heard a radio report that ships won't be able to get to Burns Harbor, IN for another two weeks because the Lakes are...

This has nothing to do with anything "gardening", but if you want to read an interesting historical story, check this Lincoln photograph archive article out...Fascinating "garage sale" yarn. Hmm, I guess it is a "conservation"-related story......

During Monday's blizzard (!), I glanced outside and a flash of orange caught my eye. There were two Robins, poor dears, hunkered down in the Honeylocust tree closest to the bird feeders. This reminded me of the day, several years ago, when I...

Having recently spent a month bouncing around the Lower Keys (we rented a place via VRBO. Don't get me started on horrible landlords; then again, the sunset from the porch was awesome), I was intrigued to read this essay about Naples,...

Weedpatch Subscribers: I hope we have 100% participation in this lovely offer from Kay MacNeil to receive Milkweed seeds. Just send her $2 and a SASE. (I just did. And I will find a great spot along a roadway or park to toss the seed. This is...

Benjamin Vogt, a Nebraska landscape designer, has a blog that I recently added to Favorite Places: The Deep Middle. His post on March 17 was a Resource Guide to information about pollinators and native plants. The Ultimate Pollinator &...

Pat Hill posted this article recently on her terrific blog, Pat Hill's Natural Midwest Garden. She and I seemed to be thinking similar thoughts about spring that day... Enjoy! rl Harbingers of Spring I wonder if the sap is stirring yet, If...

Sometimes those forwarded emails are just too good to pass up and need to be shared. When I received a forwarded email about World Maps, I tracked down what might be the original source, at a blog called "The Story Reading Ape". The Ape shares some unusual...

Required reading (use this link to read the article) from Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home , via the NY Times. If the plants (that includes trees and shrubs) in your garden don't help feed beneficial insects and animals, it's time...

It appears that the sweet small finches are turning color And that the crocus are deciding to poke their Purple heads above the frostline And that the honeybees are hungering for Exercise after a long winters nap. The pussywillows are fat and...

If this winter weather is getting to you, think about a refreshing green weekend and come to the One Earth Film Festival! Some big movers and shakers of the environmental "care for planet, love the earth" will be here, and you don't want to...

Look who showed up on our dock at sunset yesterday! The Great White Heron (which is a white form of the Great Blue that we see in the north) can only be found in the lower Florida Keys according to the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Of course, a local...

If you've ever shopped at Chalet Nursery in Wilmette, or watched Channel 7 TV in the morning, or listened to Mike Nowak's Garden Show (lamentedly it is no more), or well, just been around the plant world, you have seen the ever-enthusiastic...

Last week I took a very chilly but beautiful walk in the forest preserve at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. Great shadows! But today I saw great shadows when we took a walk along the "Old Overseas Highway" (opened 1939, thank you President Roosevelt) that runs...

If you find yourself in New Bern (eastern) North Carolina, as we did for a 2014 graduation, take the opportunity to see the 1770 Tryon Palace. Unforgettable. And amazing that it not only burned down completely and was reconstructed from...

It's been forever since I wrote to you, and I apologize for the absence. I've been spending a lot of time writing house histories and family genealogies, advocating for better municipal land use decisions (hellooo, City of Lake Forest, even...

Hi, everyone. If you want to hear some excellent speakers, check out this conference, sponsored by The Wild Ones, to be held at the College of Lake County on Saturday, November 15. I loved the book on pollinator plants by Doug Tallamy who...

I have a friend named Mike Nowak, a fellow hale & hearty Pole and (hail and hardy) garden writer (although Mike is way way way more prodigious than I). He just sent me his new book, in which he wrote the following inscription (which I...

"Sign of the Times" (or not). Imagine the woe of the arborist who collected and lovingly tended this collection at the Boerner Botanical Gardens, only to see it possibly destroyed by a bug. Perhaps the Gardens have committed to long-term...

MISSION

The Weedpatch Gazette is written for people who believe that beautiful landscapes should emphasize diversity and richness in plant material and be especially sensitive to landforms, ecology, economy, wildlife, and the wise use of land, water and soil. TWG aims to present information succinctly, with candor, detail, and humor. Submissions of content, well-reasoned criticism, and ideas for stories about landscape and the people who make and appreciate them are always welcome.